They weren't by the first tree, but that didn't really surprise Ian. He figured that Jack would take forever picking out the perfect tree for Sam – he knew he would. Nothing wrong with that. Ian saw the axe leaning against the first tree – Sally's tree – and decided that while they were out hunting for Sam's tree, he'd sharpen the axe for Jack so they'd be ready to start chopping the minute the others returned. He didn't want to be out here any longer than necessary, after all.

He carried the axe over to a big rock, pulled the whetstone from his pocket and sat down, then started sharpening.

OOOOOOOO

Half an hour later, he was getting pretty annoyed. There were a lot of trees out there, and there were two of them. They had to have found the right tree by now. The axe was sharper than shit – he had sharpened axes and knives and lots of other blades, so he knew how to do it quickly enough – but neither Jack or Daniel had made an appearance yet, and Ian's butt was getting cold from sitting on the rock.

"They can't be lost," he muttered to himself, looking at the trail of footprints – and one set of dog tracks – that led away from the area. There was no way they couldn't follow those tracks back to the first tree, and ultimately to the truck if necessary. Besides, Jack wasn't stupid, and Daniel was an archeologist, for Christ's sake. Archeologists had to have some kind of sense of direction, right? Egypt was a pretty desolate place, after all, and Daniel had been on digs there he was sure. He'd have gotten lost out in the desert for sure if he didn't have a good sense of direction, probably.

He picked up the axe, and looked at the tree. Maybe he should chop it down? He wondered about that, though, because Jack had sure looked pretty pleased with the notion of chopping the tree down himself, and Ian didn't want to take Jack's fun from him. He sighed, and dropped the axe, leaning it against the tree once more. Might as well go look for them, and maybe light a fire under them if they were having trouble deciding on the other tree. He could be the tie-breaking vote, after all. Grumbling about old men and indecisiveness, he headed into the woods, following the trail Jack and Daniel had made.

OOOOOOO

"Are you sure he didn't get lost on the way to the truck?"

"He couldn't have."

"Maybe he wandered off?"

"Why would he wander off, Daniel? To look at the pretty snow on the other side of the trees?"

Jack scowled, and then sighed, because he knew he really didn't have any business getting irritable with Daniel It wasn't his fault they were stuck in this stupid ditch – no more than it was Jack's – and Daniel was hurting pretty bad, even though the cold was doing a good job of numbing the hurt from his shoulder. It wasn't dangerous yet – a dislocated shoulder wasn't a life threatening injury and the two of them were wearing warm clothing, so they weren't going to freeze to death – not with the sun beating down on them. And Jack had no intention of still being stuck when the sun went down.

He'd tried to climb out the gully himself – twice. The first time he'd slipped on an icy patch that had looked fairly stable and had damn near broken his nose when he hit an outcropping of rock face-first, and the second time he'd made it a grand total of about five feet before he ended up back in the deep snow at the bottom. Both times Jaffer had watched him from his position above them, and both times Jack had been forced to tell the lab to stay put when it looked like he was going to come down after them. He wasn't all that sure that even Jaffer would have been able to get out of the gully once he was at the bottom.

"Maybe he had an accident?" Daniel hazarded.

Jack frowned at that particular thought. He had considered that, too, and that actually had him more worried than anything else. If Ian had fallen into some kind of ravine, too, or something had happened to him, the cadet could be sitting in the cold waiting to be rescued the same way Jack and Daniel were waiting on him to come find them.

"I hope not."

He looked up at Jaffer again.

"You need to go find Ian, little man... He might be hurt."

"He's not going to go, Jack," Daniel said, playing with the snow. He was building a little village of snow Incas – complete with steppe pyramid and a little alter at the top with itty bitty hearts that had been cut out of other snow Incas as sacrifices. It was something to do while waiting to be rescued, after all. "You've already tried to send him-"

"I know."

"He probably doesn't want to leave you alone."

"Yeah."

Which was normally great.

Jack looked up to the top of the gully once more, but he didn't see Jaffer.

OOOOOO

"Jesus, what were they thinking?" Ian muttered to himself after a good ten minutes of walking. He wasn't a tracker, but even he could see where they'd stopped occasionally and checked out trees. Trees that were way too big to fit into Jack's house. There was no rhyme or reason to their walking, either. They went left for a little bit, and then they'd gone right for a little bit, then they'd actually circle a tree a few times – what was that all about? – and then they'd walk in a straight line for a bit longer.

Maybe they were fucking with him? Thinking that it'd be funny to have him following impossible trails? Watching him from someplace hidden to see if he'd follow their tracks off a cliff or into a tree, or over a patch of ice. Not that he'd ever think they'd hurt him, but he could see Jack making false trails just to get Ian to follow them. Ian had thought of it, after all, and there was no doubt Jack could have come up with the idea just as easily.

He was debating going back to the tree and waiting for them to get tired of goofing off – almost positive no that that's what they were doing, when he saw Jaffer bouncing up to him from further up the track. The lab had to bounce, since he was running, and in deep snow the only way to make any progress was to jump along. Smiling – because a bouncing dog is just too cute – Ian headed for the lab.

"Where the heck is Jack?" Ian asked Jaffer once he was close enough to not have to yell. "Is he hiding from me?"

Jaffer whuffled Ian's thigh, and Ian scratched his ears, looking around, expecting to be ambushed any time. Maybe a huge snowball fight? Maybe just a lot of snow dumped on him from above? He wouldn't put either past Jack.

"Where's Jack, Jaffer?" Ian asked again. "Find him for me."

Instead of looking at him like he was crazy, or heading for some secluded spot –where Jack was probably hiding even as they were standing there – Jaffer headed back the way he came, stopping after a few leaps, and looking back over his shoulder. Figuring for sure the lab was leading him into an ambush, Ian went anyways. He could use a good snowball fight.

No more than ten minutes later – still following the trail – Jaffer came to a stop, looking at Ian intently. Ian stopped as well, looking around.

"Well? Is this the ambush spot?"

Jaffer barked. Once. Then twice, and Ian realized that he'd never heard him bark before.

"Jaffer!"

The voice came from what seemed like very close and very far away at the same time, but it was definitely Jack's.

Jaffer turned his head took a few steps, and then looked down in the snow.

Completely confused, now, Ian followed him, and just barely managed to keep from losing his footing as the snow gave way beneath him. He fell backwards, landing in the soft snow.

"Ian! Be careful!"

Ian looked down, and saw that he was on the very edge of a drop – a canyon or a ravine of some sort – about forty feet down. And at the bottom were Jack and Daniel.

"Where the hell have you been?" He yelled down at them. "Do you have any idea how long I've been sitting by that fucking tree?"

"Hey! Go get the ropes and get us out of here!" Jack yelled back, realizing that was the reason the boy had taken so long to come find them. He'd been sitting on his rear waiting for them. "Then we'll discuss just how long you've been sitting by that tree. My butt's probably frostbitten."